Six month with no gym

[Cameron_R]

 

Hey,

 

I'm about to start six months where I won't have access to a gym. At all. I'm looking to get some help with a non-weighted or body-weight routine that I can do so I can maintain the little muscle I have. 

 

I will have access to a road, a beach, one small flight of stairs, a small pool and that's about it. There will be no nice parks with stuff to climb on (or do pull ups on etc). Oh ... I will have those 20L water bottles available. 

 

I was searching the forum for any suggested routines with no weights but can't find anything, could be because I don't know what to search for!!

 

Can any one help? Or point me to a site or thread?

[Pseudonym]

Hmm. Tough question.

I think it's pretty much inevitable that you're going to lose some size. In fact, you'll probably come back to NZ a puny weakling (and it'll serve you right, you bastard).

But with a good diet and some body weight exercises, you can probably minimise the puniness. Will you still be able to keep the protein supplements up?

Here's a few thoughts for some body weight exercises for each muscle group...

Chest
Push ups. That's the obvious one. You can make it harder by putting your feet up on a chair - that also makes it a bit more like an incline press. Or strap on a set of dive tanks that you may just happen to have handy.

Back
This is harder if you don't have anywhere you can find to do chinups. Keep an eye out for places with low beams you could use. You could also do bentover rows with your 20L water bottles - they're basically a big 20kg dumbbell. You might even be able to lay on a bed and do dumbbell pullovers with one.

Shoulders
Handstand pushups are fantastic for hitting shoulders and traps. If you can come back to NZ doing a nice set of free-standing handstand pushups, I'm going to be so impressed. And envious. The problem here will be building up enough strength to even start them. Although I think there are ways of taking some of your weight so you don't have to push so much (and with all the muscle you'll be losing, you won't weigh much anyway!)

Legs
This is basically quads. I haven't got any answers for hamstrings. But quads you can hit with pistol squats. Or again, strap on your dive tanks and try doing regular squats (or maybe sumo squats if the balance is a bit strange)

 

That'll do for now. I'll add more as I think of them, and maybe others will have some good ideas too. Basically, you just need to get creative.

[Leeroid]

Dips - Put two chairs back to back and you can perform dips on them. Lower chest/triceps

Inverted row - Put a sturdy broom across the two chairs you used for dips and hang underneath it to perform bodyweight rows. Lats/biceps

Bent over rows - Use the water bottles to perform bent over rows, similar to DB rows but use one for each hand. 

Pushups - Different angles with different hand positions to hit different areas. Incline, decline, diamond, wide, narrow, fist, one arm, or clap pullups are just some of many different pushup variations you can perform to prevent you getting bored with the same old pushup. Chest/triceps

Overhead press - Fill those water bottles up and press them overhead. Delts, triceps

Lateral raises - Use the half filled water bottles to perform lateral and front raises. Can also perform rear delt flyes. Delts

Squats - Holding your water bottles, you can do squats. Quads

Glute ham raises - If you can secure your feet under your bed or get someone to hold your feet down, you can do these to hit your hamstrings really good. Hamstrings

Standing calf raises - Put a book or a brick on the floor and you can perform calf raises off there. Just one leg at a time to increase difficulty. Calves

Bicep curls - Use the water bottles. Biceps

 

If I was in your situation here's what I would do.

 

Workout A

 

10 minute jog to warm up

 

Squats - 20 reps

Overhead press - 15 reps

Inverted rows - 20 reps

Narrow grip pushups - 20 reps

Lying leg raises - 25 reps

 

Perform exercises circuit style, with 1 minute between rounds. 5 rounds. 

 

 

Workout B

 

Run up and down your stairs for 5 to 10 mins to warm up.

 

Explosive bodyweight squat jumps - 20 reps

Wide pushups - 25 reps

Bent over rows - 20 reps

Lateral raises - 15 reps

Bicep curls - 15 reps

Bicycle crunches - 50 reps

 

Circuit style, 5 rounds

 

 

Workout C

 

100 burpees to warm up

 

Bodyweight lunges - 30 reps each leg

Dips - 20 reps

Inverted rows - 20 reps

Front raises - 15 reps

Normal pushups - 20 reps

Situps - 25 reps

 

Circuit style, 5 rounds. 

 

You can do calf raises and glute ham raises once a week as you see fit. Just something I would do to give myself a bit of structure. 

[soundsgood]

Google prison workouts 

[Cameron_R]

 

Hmm. Tough question.

I think it's pretty much inevitable that you're going to lose some size. In fact, you'll probably come back to NZ a puny weakling (and it'll serve you right, you bastard).

Sacrifices must be made!

But with a good diet and some body weight exercises, you can probably minimise the puniness. Will you still be able to keep the protein supplements up?

[Cameron_R]

A mate of mine just gave me a bootleg copy of

"Convict Conditioning, How to bust free of all Weakness - Using lost secrets of Supreme Survival Strenght" by Paul "Coach" Wade.

Looking forward to reading it this week!